CALGARY, Alberta — Maybe the Sharks could have taken a little satisfaction in the fact that they climbed into a four-way tie for the final playoff spot in the insanely tight Western Conference standings Tuesday night.

But they didn’t.

Because even though two goals by Logan Couture were enough to earn San Jose one point by pushing its game against the Calgary Flames into overtime, the Sharks lost 3-2 when Matt Stajan blocked a shot by Dan Boyle, then scored the winning goal with 39.7 seconds left in the extra period.

“One is better than none, but that’s not what our goal was,” coach Todd McLellan said, “and we’re disappointed leaving. I thought we played well enough to get two, but we’re not going home with them.”

The play that ended any chance of capturing that second point began with a faceoff in the Calgary zone. McLellan said he thought about calling a timeout but liked the players he had on the ice and decided against that.

San Jose even won the faceoff before things went wrong.

“It was one of those plays where Boyler hesitated on the loose puck, and by the time he got to it, the lane had closed,” McLellan said. “I’m sure he wished he had gone past Stajan rather than into him, but it happened.”

Boyle owned up to his role in the loss.

“You’re trying to win the game. It can’t happen, and it did,” he said. “We worked hard to get back into the game, and it just sucks that it ended the way it did.”

After blocking the shot, Stajan dished the puck to Blake Comeau for a 2-on-1 rush with only Marc-Edouard Vlasic back. The Flames’ execution, as Boyle scrambled to get back into the play, was perfect.

The latest point gives the Sharks 78 for the season — the same number as Calgary, the Colorado Avalanche and the Los Angeles Kings, who beat the Detroit Red Wings 5-2 Tuesday night. San Jose, however, does still have games in hand.

The Flames had scored the first goal in each of their previous 11 games, and before Tuesday’s game, McLellan stressed to his players the need for a strong start.

Couture got the message, popping a rebound of a shot by Brent Burns past Calgary goalie Miikka Kiprusoff to give the Sharks a 1-0 lead just 53 seconds into the game.

Then just as the Sharks were positioned to add to their lead with a five-minute power play after Flames forward Curtis Glencross earned a boarding major and a game misconduct for hitting Jason Demers from behind late in the first period, they let the Flames get back into the game.

The Sharks could generate only one good scoring chance on that power play, and the momentum shifted Calgary’s way. Seventy-five seconds after the teams were at even strength, Flames rookie Sven Baertschi scored after a centering pass popped to him in the slot, and he fired the puck past Antti Niemi at 5:46 of the second period.

Late in the period, the pattern repeated itself.

First, the Sharks couldn’t capitalize on a delay-of-game penalty to Flames defenseman Mark Giordano. Then, just as he was returning to the ice, Giordano picked off an outlet pass by Vlasic. An instant later, Jarome Iginla scored at 18:27 to give the Flames a 2-1 edge.

“It is what it is,” Vlasic said. “Normally, Clowe would have been on a breakaway, goes the other way and scores. … I knew he (Giordano) was coming out soon, but I don’t make those turnovers.”

Just 1:22 into the final period, the Sharks did score on the power play. First, Couture kept the puck in at the blue line and got it to Joe Thornton. From there, Couture headed for the slot, where he fired the puck into the Calgary net for his team-leading 30th goal of the season.

“I thought our power play took us out of the game and then allowed us to get back into the game,” McLellan said.

San Jose’s record over the past 20 games is 5-11-4, and Couture said a big part of the problem is the team’s inability to build on what leads they do get.

“Don’t let teams stick around games like we did tonight,” he said. “We had opportunities to get the second, to get the third, and we didn’t. They stayed around, they got some chances, they scored on them and they beat us.”

Tommy Wingels missed the game with an unspecified upper-body injury that occurred midway in the third period of Monday night’s victory in Edmonton.

“Don’t know what happened,” McLellan said. “He (Wingels) came back to the bench, and he was in some discomfort and still a little bit sore today.”

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